Mau1wurf1977 wrote:I'm glad media in general are on the way out. Downloading and storing is what I like. Hence my passion for Steam and GOG.com.
Yes and no. For the PC yes (especially the brilliant GOG, as I hate DRM), but for consoles not so much, as (a) with a PC you can always add a new hard drive or replace an older drive, so you can have every downloadable game you own on your machine at once, but with a console you can't add a second drive, and frequently you can't replace with a larger drive (or if you can it's too expensive), so you have to delete and re-download your games every so often, which is a real nuisance if your download speed is slow, or you have a low monthly data cap, and (b) on consoles the downloadable games often have stringent ties to one machine or account, so if your console dies or gets stolen then it can be troublesome to get the games tied instead to your new console, and (c) Microsoft have already proven that they will completely close down online access to a console when it's a few years past it's commercial lifetime, so in say five years time it might well be impossible for me to plug in a new (or even my existing) XBox 360 and download a game that I've paid for now, as the 360's online access will probably have been terminated for ever by then, as has already happened (two or three years back) for the original XBox.
Oh, and with Valve and GOG you get games sales, whereas with console downloadable games you get much less in the way of reduced costs, especially with Microsoft, where the XBox downloadable games can cost a lot more (even full price!) than the used, or even new, retail copy of the same game.
In my view:
PC downloadable games = convenience and saving money,
Console downloadable games = lots of potential problems and can actually cost more money than getting the games on a disc from a bricks and mortar shop.
Edit: In case anyone is wondering why I decry optical discs for being so unreliable in the above post, but praise discs in this post, I should point out that it's writeable discs (CD-R and DVD-R) I've had the problems with. I have five consoles that use discs (PS2, Gamecube, original XBox, XBox 360, and PS3) plus all the games I've bought on PC discs, and all of the movie DVDs and audio CDs I've bought, and have very rarely had any problems with these (I think I remember one audio CD and one (XBox 360) game, and there were probably more, but I don't recall offhand). Basically, commercial discs have been mostly very reliable in my experience, whereas home burnt discs are much less so (and the people I've mentioned this mostly concur, although lots of people say game discs are less reliable, but I do wonder how much of that is due to user neglect, as I know a lot of people keep their game discs out of the case and on the carpet or thrown casually into a desk drawer or TV cupboard.